Brett Kennedy Deserves a Big League Call-Up
The San Diego Padres pitching staff this season has not been very good, to say the least.
In terms of ERA, the Padres currently rank 20th as a staff and have given up the ninth-most runs in baseball. While the bullpen has held its own for the majority of the season, the Padres’ starting rotation has been a roller coaster ride all year. Sure, Tyson Ross has been solid all season and rookie Joey Lucchesi has emerged as the staff ace, but the team’s rotation as a whole has been disappointing.
The past few weeks have been an experiment for Andy Green‘s club in terms of finding a fifth starter.
Walker Lockett, Bryan Mitchell, Luis Perdomo, and even reliever Matt Strahm have each started games for the team as the fifth starter. Of those four, only Strahm had success, and his starts all came on bullpen days. Luis Perdomo’s consistency issues have continued to plague him all season as he hasn’t really been able to put strong consecutive outings together. He also left Friday’s start and complained of shoulder pain. Bryan Mitchell has been absolutely awful since he was acquired from the Yankees and Walker Lockett is just not ready to be a big league pitcher.
However, down in El Paso, there is a pitcher whose big league debut should be coming soon.
Meet 23-year-old Brett Kennedy. Drafted in the 11th run out of Fordham in 2015, Kennedy has quietly made himself one of the best pitchers in the Pacific Coast League. In 84 1/3 innings pitched this season, Kennedy has a 10-0 record with a 2.56 ERA, a 1.12 WHIP, with 77 strikeouts and 23 walks. In a particularly hitters-friendly league, Kennedy is holding opposing hitters to a dismal .228 batting average. Kennedy has been the ace of the El Paso pitching staff and was selected to the PCL All-Star team.
Without a true number five starter on their big league rotation, the Padres should definitely give Kennedy an opportunity to see what he can do. In what has been a lost season since the beginning of the year, the Padres have absolutely nothing to lose by seeing what Kennedy can give them as a starter. The team has seen what Mitchell and Perdomo can do, and since both of them have been disappointing, there is no harm at all in giving Kennedy the chance he deserves.
Whether we see Brett Kennedy on the mound in a Padres uniform this season is very uncertain. The Padres still want to see what Luis Perdomo and Bryan Mitchell can give them as starting pitchers. However, with the season he is having, Brett Kennedy is very deserving of a big league call-up.
Diego works at Prep Baseball Report as an Area Scout in Illinois and Missouri. He graduated this spring with a Bachelor Degree in Communications and played four years of college baseball, logging nearly 50 innings of work in a relief role. Diego hopes to work in an MLB front office one day and has been a Padres fan since he was six years old.
Like many readers here I turn to EVT for the kind of information and insight hard to get elsewhere. When the club struggles it helps to read of young players who might be ready.
His numbers are good anywhere, but especially in PCL. With the roster, ahem, in a state of flux, let’s see what some of the kids can do. I think we can all agree we’ve seen enough of Mitchell. And after 3 years in the bigs, it seems like it might be time to move on from Perdomo. Let’s see Kennedy.
Yes agree. If we’re honest about Perdomo, it’s not just this season where he has been inconsistent, it has been since he was a Rule V draftee. Now that he has been injured, it has to be next man up.
So Padres pitching is 20th in ERA and eight teams have given up more runs. Sounds like pitching is the team strength when compared to the hitting.
I get that not every player with good stats is a good prospect, but Dude is dominating AAA at 23 years old. And he is also a league where a 23 year hits .300 with 25 hr’s and it is said those offensive numbers don’t mean much. And he is not even a top 30 prospect? What am I missing?
Just wanted to say I appreciate all of the work you and the staff at east village do to give this win-starved city some hope for better days. You all keeping us posted on the entire pads organization is really awesome. Thanks again brother!
Thank you. We all appreciate that very much.
I really respect peeler but I wonder why they haven’t called up Kennedy yet considering our pitching staff is treding water.